


The Sun in His Shadows

by xliterati



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:41:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xliterati/pseuds/xliterati
Summary: Post ACOWAR - Interconnecting oneshots featuring Elain and Azriel and the bond neither one of them had anticipated.





	The Sun in His Shadows

She bathed in sunlight. It was poetic and soft but then again everything about Elain _was_. Poetic and soft.

 

Her golden hair caught the light in the armor as she sat perched by the window sill. She did not belong there, in those golden waves, that pale dress and that soft smile. The armor was Azriel’s home. He kept his demons at bay and his mind calm in this room.

 

And Elain did not belong.

 

Azriel felt a pinch in his ribs at the thought and when he walked in, Elain stood up nervously at the sound of him.

 

“I thought you would be home earlier?” her voice broke out into the silence.

 

She was fidgeting, her hands between the pillows of her dress, her fingers nervously edging around them. Azriel had the acute realization then that Elain had been waiting,.

 

She had been waiting for him.

 

“Rhysand had a few more negotiations he wanted to settle.” Azriel flinched slightly at the sound of his own voice. Elain’s had broken the magical silence in the armor, but Azriel ‘s had sounded harsh, brute.

 

Elain nodded. Azriel made his way across the room, trying to find the written laws on one of the treaty negotiations Rhysand had passed. Elain said nothing from behind him and Azriel could feel her gaze trace the shadows around him. He forgot sometimes, how easily the shadows were a part of him and how easily Elain was still frightened of the only world Azriel had ever known.

 

But he was careful, always so careful and when he turned to face her once more, Azriel tucked the shadows into his wings.

 

“They were dancing. Quite fast,” Elain said softly, her eyes searching Azriel’s.

 

Azriel stopped short of inhaling, and he felt something seize him. No one, no one ever spoke of his shadows that way, with a hum in their voice and a curiosity in their eyes. Azriel’s shadows were a reminder that he was not alone; they had been the only constant in the near darkness of his years of torture. And yet they had never been received well; he had always been looked upon in disgust.

 

His eyes closed with a flutter and he dragged his hand across his face to keep from breathing quickly. Elain never looked at him with anything but a warm curiosity and he found at times that he could not bear the weight of it.

 

“Were you able to spend time with Lucien this afternoon? I know he was free to roam outside of Vassa’s court today,” Azriel spoke while trying to change the rapidness in his chest.  

 

Elain stilled. It had been a year since the change, since Elain’s loss of mortality and since her plunge into this world Azriel held dear. Yet even with time, Elain’s mating bond with Lucien had not changed. They appeared to have frozen in time. Both hesitating, unsure, and yet bound so inextricably.

 

“Yes.” Elain offered no more outside the curt response. Azriel cursed at himself, knowing to not bring up Lucien and yet, his curiosity getting the better of him.

 

“May I ask you something?” Azriel pushed, just a bit, a small force into Elain’s fragile mind.

 

Elain bit her lip and clenched her hands together, but nodded all the same.

 

“Why do you run from him?”

 

The question caught her and he could see the tremble in her body when she understood.

 

“I -,” she hesitated and he could see the quick rise and fall of her chest. It scared her, he realized, scared her to even think about the possibilities.

 

“I do not like being forced to choose. I have never- I never chose Lucien. I did not even know who he was when the bond snapped into place. I chose my fiancé, I had the chance to know him, to love him before deciding. But I fell into that cauldron and into this strange place. With shadows that cannot keep quiet, and voices and stories inside my head I thought were not real, and a mate who I did not choose. This body is strange to me, my powers are terrifying, and yet my heart-“

 

Elain had been speaking so quickly that when her breath hitched she has the realization she hadn’t taken a breath. She swallowed down tears and stared at the blue siphon on Azriel that gave her comfort.

 

“My heart is human Azriel, how do I change that?”

 

There was a small defeat in her words, and though Azriel knew all this, he had known it for the past year, it sounded infinitely harsher coming from Elain.

 

He took a step forward and his scarred hand, so out of place and so fearful of touching Elain’s golden light, clasped onto a small tendril of her hair. He tucked the strand back into place behind her ear and then slowly, carefully, skimmed his hand across her jaw until it nestled into place under her chin. He lifted it slightly and Elain’s tired eyes met his.

“Your heart is all that you are Elain. It is what defeated Hybern, and it is how you are as strong as you are. Your heart will guide you and it will be the one thing you are capable of holding onto from a life that was stolen from you. Hold onto it, it is your gift in this life.”

 

There was a moment where he hesitated. They stood for a beat too long in the sunlight, their shadows casting a long darkness on the floor of the armor. Their shadows giving the illusion of a closeness that neither Elain or Azriel would allow themselves in the moment.

 

So he stepped away, and though their shadows chased each other's, Azriel walked away from Elain and the distance cut through them. Elain stood in the armor staring through the door Azriel had left through. In the stories she had known as a little girl, Azriel would have kissed her. In that small stolen moment where they had held on for a moment too long, as he held her chin and pulled her close, he would have a placed a small kiss on her forehead. For comfort, for shared exhaustion, for acknowledgment. For something  _more_.

 

But their reality was not a story either one of them had accounted for.


End file.
